Health Secretary Andy Burnham is on the war-path again. The Guardian today reports that he has accused the Tories of planning to make the NHS the 'world's biggest quango'. This attack is being seen as an attempt to maintain the pressure on David Cameron after the MEP Daniel Hannan was upbraided for criticising the NHS on US prime-time TV.

"The NHS should really be roon a lot more like Everton Football club," claims plucky Northerner, Mr Burnham. "As everyone knows I love Everton FC more than I love the NHS. And I love Twitter more than both of them. But then who doesn't?" Mr Burnham went on to outline his recommendations: "What I would like to do is to make the NHS much more dynamic - in a way, rather like Everton FC, which is very, very dynamic indeed. We would like to get the NHS moving quicker, make sure that waiting lists never come back. And let me say one thing right now, there are no waiting lists at Everton FC... Oh no."

"People at Everton do a lot of running around, they kick footballs around the football pitch, which, let's face it is very exciting. They shout a lot... things like, 'come on you Toffeemen'. And let's face it that sounds a lot more exciting than 'MRSA' does it not?"

"The Tories, as we all know, would make the NHS much, much more like roogby football. They would 'try' very hard, but 'try' is all they would do. And I think that we all can safely say that we do not want to turn the NHS into one big scrum either, do we? Oh no."

Mr Burnham was asked whether he also intended to introduce into the NHS the Everton habit of paying massive transfer fees. Everton signed James Beattie for £6 million in January 2005, Andy Johnson for £8.6 million in summer 2006, Yakubu Aiyegbeni for £11.25 million in summer 2007, and Marouane Fellaini for £15 million in September 2008. Mr Burnham replied, "No, no, no, as we all know high salaries are currently under review and it would be very unpopular to pay them in the public sector... just as it appears very unpopular to pay them in the financial sector. So let me say right here and right now: Those salaries will remain firmly and solely the preserve of the 'football sector'... where it would of course quite naturally be foolish for the government to legislate ootherwise."